Modern high density IC (integrated circuit) devices commonly have bodies with flat horizontal lower surfaces that lie facewise adjacent to a circuit board, and multiple leads that project from two or four sides of the body and extend downwardly to conductive pads on the circuit board. Such a mounted IC device can be tested by a test clip which has multiple contacts that engage the multiple leads of the IC device. U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,580 describes a test adaptor or clip of this type, which includes four frames or arms pivotally mounted on an inner housing or center, with each arm carrying a row of contacts. Each arm can be pivoted to move the lower portions of the contacts against a row of leads extending from one side of the IC device to establish contact therewith. Of course, it is important that each contact engage a predetermined lead, and the above patent assures this by providing barriers on the arm that lie between adjacent contacts, with the barriers entering between pairs of leads as the contacts engage the leads. While such a test clip works well for IC devices with leads of moderately small pitch such as with leads spaced 50 mil (one mil equals one thousandth inch) apart, it is difficult to use such alignment techniques for fine pitch IC devices, where the leads may be closely spaced, such as where they are spaced about 25 mil apart or even less. However, it is still essential that the test clip contacts be aligned with the fine pitch IC leads.
The test adaptor or clip described in the above U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,580 positions the upper ends of the contact so they lie at the top of the arm, where they are accessible for single point probes such as mini grabbers or flying leads. However, such contacts are not convenient for concurrent signal testing used with logic analyzers, which must connect to all the contacts of an arm or of all arms. A fine pitch test clip which aligned its contacts with those of the leads of an IC device sufficiently to assure engagement of each contact with a predetermined lead, and which facilitated the coupling of a logic analyzer or the like to many or all contacts of the leads simultaneously, would be of considerable value.